Desire might be the oldest story we tell.
And for as long as we've been telling it, we've been reaching for plants - stirring petals into wine, roots into honey and cacao into something dark and bitter, all for that electric moment when the body wakes up to itself and says yes.
Aphrodisiac foods and herbs are the foods and plants that cultures have long linked with desire: damiana, rose, cacao, blue lotus, oysters and shatavari among them. Most of their reputations rest on tradition rather than proof, and modern research is limited and mixed. Their stories, though, and the rituals around them, are worth knowing.
What I notice, following these plants across centuries and continents, is how the same longing keeps showing up - in cultures that never spoke to each other, in rituals that rhyme across oceans.
So let's take a little tour.
Damiana, the Lover's Herb
On the dry, sunlit hillsides of Mexico and Central America grows a small, fragrant shrub so tied to desire that a 19th-century botanist gave it the scientific name Turnera aphrodisiaca.
Damiana is often called a love herb of the Maya, and I like to think they saw it the way I do: as a tuning fork for the spirit. Spanish missionaries are said to have recorded it as a love potion. And in Mexico today, it's still steeped into a traditional liqueur associated with romance. The best-known bottle is shaped like a full-figured woman.
Damiana lives in Élixir d'Extase because, to me, desire begins before the body - in the frequency of openness, in the permission to want.
Rose, the Misunderstood
Poor rose. Somewhere along the way she became a Valentine's cliché. But long before the greeting cards, she filled the perfumeries, kitchens and apothecaries of the ancient world.
Cleopatra is said to have covered her floors in rose petals when she feasted Mark Antony. Rose has long been associated with calm and with opening the heart, and Persian poets, Rumi among them, returned to her again and again as the flower of love.
Rose oil has been the subject of small studies on mood and relaxation. The research is young, but I find it kind of poetic that the lab keeps circling back to a flower.
Cacao, the Food of the Gods
The Aztec emperor Montezuma is said to have drunk cup after golden cup of cacao (fifty, in the most famous telling) before visiting his wives. The chemistry behind the legend is genuinely interesting.
Cacao contains traces of anandamide, nicknamed the bliss molecule, from the Sanskrit word ananda, bliss. It also contains phenylethylamine, a compound popularly linked with the giddiness of falling in love, and theobromine, a gentle stimulant that relaxes the blood vessels. The amounts in a cup or a piece are small, and research hasn't shown cacao to be an aphrodisiac on its own. As a ritual of slowing down together, though, it has few equals.
The Mesoamerican civilizations held cacao sacred. It was currency, it was ceremony, it was an offering to the gods. Centuries later, Linnaeus gave the tree its botanical name, Theobroma, Greek for "food of the gods." The Maya and the Aztecs wouldn't have needed the translation.
Ecuador, by the way, is where the cacao story seems to begin: the oldest known traces of people using cacao, from more than 5,000 years ago, come from the Mayo-Chinchipe culture in the country's upper Amazon. Our Chocolat de Joie, made with Deer Jade, uses single-origin cacao from Manabí, Ecuador.
Blue Lotus, the Sacred Flower
Of all the plants here, blue lotus is the one that feels most like a secret. In ancient Egypt, this water lily was a flower of the sun and of rebirth, opening with the morning light. It appears again and again in tomb paintings: held to the nose at banquets, tucked into hair, gathered into garlands.
Some historians believe the Egyptians steeped it in wine. Whether or not they did, they kept it close in the moments that mattered most - feasting, music and love.
Modern chemists have since identified the flower's aporphine alkaloids, chiefly nuciferine, which researchers are still working to understand. Its lore, meanwhile, is full of desire.
Blue lotus lives in Chocolat de Joie, beside kanna and rose petals - a little Nile magic for the moments after dark.
Oysters, a Taste of the Sea
Casanova, the story goes, ate fifty raw oysters every morning (often with a companion in the bath).
The science is quieter than the legend. Oysters are rich in zinc, a mineral the body needs to keep testosterone at normal levels, but there's little evidence they spark desire on their own. What I adore is the ritual around them: the shared plate, the salt of the sea, the little thrill of tipping one back.
Sometimes the ritual is the magic.
Shatavari, the Queen
Her name is popularly translated as "she who possesses a hundred husbands," usually read as a nod to vitality so abundant it could nourish a hundred connections without dimming.
In Ayurveda, shatavari has been revered for centuries as a rasayana, a rejuvenating tonic, above all for women. Tradition says she replenishes what depletion and stress have taken, creating the conditions in which desire can remember where it lives.
She's one of the plant allies in Élixir d'Extase - the quiet one, best understood by feel.
The Oldest Invitation
What gets me about all of these plants is the people behind them, reaching for the earth's offerings across cultures and centuries to feel more alive, more open, more connected.
We've steeped damiana into liqueur.
We've offered cacao to the gods.
We've tucked blue lotus into our hair.
To me, that's devotion - to pleasure, to connection, to the knowing that feeling good isn't a luxury. It's the point.
Élixir d'Extase is my offering to this lineage: kanna extract with organic shatavari, damiana, rose, vanilla and Ceylon cinnamon, in raw, unfiltered honey from a regenerative farm in Upstate New York. Its companion, Chocolat de Joie, is vegan chocolate with blue lotus, kanna extract and rose petals in single-origin cacao from Manabí, Ecuador.
A gentle note on safety. Both contain kanna, which acts on serotonin, so never combine them with SSRIs, SNRIs, MAOIs or any other serotonergic medication. If you're pregnant or breastfeeding, skip kanna and blue lotus altogether, and if you take any prescription medication, ask your doctor first.
So here's my invitation, Célestials - the same one these plants have been extending since the very beginning: come closer, slow down and let yourself want what you want.
With love & only love, Nana 🌹
Frequently Asked Questions
Do aphrodisiac foods really work?
The evidence is limited. A few, like rose, have been the subject of small studies, but most aphrodisiac reputations rest on tradition. Much of their magic may lie in the ritual itself: slowing down, sharing and paying attention.
Which herbs are traditionally used as aphrodisiacs?
Damiana, shatavari, rose and blue lotus all have long aphrodisiac reputations, as do maca and ginseng, and foods like cacao and oysters. Their histories in love and ritual are rich, though modern research on most of them is still early.
Is chocolate an aphrodisiac?
Chocolate has been linked with love since the days of the Maya and the Aztecs, and cacao contains compounds like theobromine, phenylethylamine and traces of anandamide. Research hasn't shown it to increase desire directly, but few foods are better suited to slowing down together.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This article is for information only and is not medical advice. Our products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.